Turnaround Tales: Changing Employee Attitudes to Effect Organizational Change

This case is used internally at Kellogg and is not available for public distribution.

Business history is replete with astonishing turnarounds: companies that escape from the brink of bankruptcy, abruptly transforming from unstable to solvent, even surpassing their competitors. In some cases, the reversal in trajectory reflects a clear change in product market strategy, such as when Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997. In others, such as Safelite AutoGlass, the change was propelled instead by a fundamental shift in employee attitudes and behaviors. Presented below are the tales of four such turnarounds, where the change in employee behavior was both sudden and coordinated, in some cases even setting a new standard of excellence for their industry.